The 1963 Volkswagen Beetle Project
October, 2011 - Update
Pulled the transaxle off Tyler's '63, and after I do a little more welding and grinding on my pan, both are ready to be sandblasted and painted.
Patch panel going in my '62 pan:
September, 2011 - Update
Tyler's pan is cleaned up nicely, and he pulled the front beam off to be able to wire brush out that area better. We're also going to pull the transaxle, and with both those removed, can take both his and my pans to be sandblasted.
July, 2011 - Update
We continue to weld and grind, grind and weld... But, needing a change of pace, we decided to go ahead and separate the body from the pan last week:
June 11, 2011 - Update
Tyler and I have worked sporadically on the Bug, continuing to grind and weld, weld and grind...
April 5, 2011 - Update
Tyler has finished bead welding the RH panel, and spent some time grinding the welds down this evening while I did some wirebrushing on the inside where the parcel shelf abuts the new patch panel, getting it ready to weld in an angle bracket to tie it all back together again.
March 17, 2011 - Update
I finished bead welding the LH rear wheelwell patch panel, and Tyler trimmed and "offered up" (as the Brits put it) the RH patch panel. It was his first time MIG welding, and he did really well!
March 13, 2011 - Update
It's finally getting warm enough to work on the car again, so Ty and I tackled it again last week. While he cut out the righthand wheelwell, I started bead-welding the one we tacked in last fall. Unfortunately, I ran out of welding wire before finishing.
November 13, 2010 - Update
First patch panel is tack welded in place:
October 8, 2010 - Update
Since the last update, we've stripped the rest of the guts out of the interior, pulled the wiring harness, and removed the engine. We did get the engine to run briefly before pulling it, just to see if it would.
The latest work has been starting to tackle the remaining rust damaged areas...
August 21, 2010 - Disassembly Continues
Only had one night to work together this week. Ty pulled out most of the headliner and I removed most of the instruments from the dashboard.
August 15, 2010 - Disassembly
We've started taking the car apart... it's going to need at least a couple patch panels welded in to repair rust-through, but the normal rust-rot places have already been repaired some time ago, and look pretty good, at least right now before we've blasted the paint and surface rust off.
July 2010 - Purchased
$600 and it was ours. Tyler and I towed it home (about five miles), and decided we actually got a really good deal. A restored Beetle of this vintage can bring over $6,000, and I think we can get it looking like new for maybe half that. The seller thought he had lost the title, which is part of why we got it so cheap, but when we were cleaning the car out, lo and behold, there it was in the glove box! Took a while to sort that all out, but we now have a clear title in our name.
